We are promised a ground frost overnight, which means that summer is well and truly ended. But for consolation, Rambert Dance Company's Autumn 2003 Tour gets underway on 24th February and continues through to the beginning of December.

We are delighted to be working with Rambert again and this is where we will post all the latest news and newspaper coverage. We also hope to get comments from dance fans around the country and would love to have your feedback. See the next posting for details of what you need to do.

Rambert’s Autumn Tour 2003 is the first to be programmed by Mark Baldwin and here is an outline of the pieces to be seen, with a selection at each venue :

21 Rambert dancer and choreographer Rafael Bonachela collaborates with Kylie Minogue's creative team to produce a work that explores pure physical expression.

Elsa Canasta The second work to be created for Rambert by Javier De Frutos and is performed to music and songs by the ever-popular composer and lyricist Cole Porter, including a rare score Porter wrote in 1923.

Living Toys Karole Armitage’s first creation for Rambert, Living Toys transports us into that precarious and surreal state where dreams and consciousness merge.

Now it's your turn. We will be delighted if you want to post a comment about the Spring Tour or anything else to do with Rambert.

To post a comment you will need to register, which is easy and free. Click here and follow the steps to register, including agreeing to our Rules, Policies and Disclaimers. You must give a valid e-mail address.

When you have registered, you will be sent a password by e-mail, which enables you to log in. Then to make a posting, you need to click on the "Post Reply" button at the top right of the Rambert page; type or copy and paste your comments into the posting box; when you are ready, then press the "Add Reply" button. If you want to edit your posting, you can do so by clicking on the "paper and pencil" icon at the right above your post.

Don't worry if you've never written about dance before. Just tell us your reaction to any aspects of the evening, whether good or not. The Rambert staff are keen to have your feedback and, if appropriate, will reply here.

“As I look around Rambert’s home here in West London, I’m constantly aware of Dame Marie Rambert’s extraordinary achievement in establishing this fine Company 77 years ago. To follow her, and all of the other illustrious artistic directors of Rambert, is an enormous responsibility, but one that I find inspiring.

Since my arrival in December 2002, I have been getting to know all of Rambert’s dancers and staff and planning the future artistic shape of the Company’s repertoire. This period of thinking time has led me to the conclusion that my ambitions for Rambert will be evolutionary rather than revolutionary. As a former dancer with the Company, I see my appointment as representing a continuation of the Rambert tradition.

Rambert, Britain’s flagship contemporary dance company, announces its autumn tour, the first to be programmed by Rambert’s new Artistic Director MARK BALDWIN. The tour includes a brand new work by JAVIER DE FRUTOS, Elsa Canasta and following its success in Glasgow, Living Toys by KAROLE ARMITAGE also enters the repertoire.

The tour opens at The Lowry, Salford (24-27 September) with the WORLD PREMIERE of Elsa Canasta by JAVIER DE FRUTOS, performed to music and songs by COLE PORTER, including a recently discovered ballet score. The ballet will be further enhanced by the live performance of the score by Rambert’s Associate Orchestra, LONDON MUSICI and a female vocalist. Rambert then visits Norwich, Bristol, Milton Keynes, High Wycombe, Edinburgh and Plymouth, returning to London for its Sadler’s Wells season at the end of November.

2005 marks the centenary of Einstein’s publication of three of his most far-reaching ideas, which changed scientific thinking. As part of the year-long celebrations to mark ‘Einstein Year’, part of a ‘World Year of Physics’, the Institute of Physics has commissioned Rambert Dance Company to produce a new work, which will be choreographed by Rambert’s Artistic Director, Mark Baldwin. This will be the first work created by Baldwin for Rambert as Artistic Director.

The creation of this work will be one of the most prominent events during the Einstein Year and it is hoped, through Rambert’s touring activities, that it will help to increase public awareness of physics, and Einstein Year.

Rambert Dance Company has an outstanding opportunity to move to a new purpose-built home on the South Bank – a location in the cultural and economic heart of London. Coin Street Community Builders (CSCB), are planning a multi-use development on the Doon Street Car Park site (behind the National Theatre) and have invited Rambert to be part of it.

Iain Tuckett, Director of Coin Street Community Builders, says “We believe contemporary dance should have a much higher profile in popular culture and in our local community. Our Doon Street development provides us with an opportunity to substantially change the balance of commercial and residential uses on London’s South Bank and to introduce significant new uses including public swimming, indoor sports and contemporary dance. As the UK’s leading contemporary dance company, Rambert would be able to join the National Theatre, Royal Festival Hall, Hayward Gallery, Tate Modern, the Design Museum and many other world standard arts organisations which have made their homes on London’s South Bank. In return we ask only that Rambert inspire and support local community involvement in that most perfect expression of human creativity; contemporary dance.”

In the July edition of "ballet-dance monthly" Rambert Dance Company was our focus for the month. Scroll down the left hand side column for the Rambert section, where you'll find plenty to keep you entertained on a dank Autumn evening, including a Gallery of recent Rambert images.

RAMBERT Dance Company, the Chiswick High Road based contemporary dance company has announced its autumn tour - the first to be programmed by their new Artistic Director, Mark Baldwin.

The tour includes a brand new work by Javier De Frutos, 'Elsa Canasta' and following its success in Glasgow, 'Living Toys' by Karole Armitage, will also enter the repertoire.

The tour opens at The Lowry, Salford (September 24-27th) with the World Premier of 'Elsa Canasta' by Javier De Frutos, performed to music and songs by Cole Porter, including a recently discovered ballet score.

BUSINESS EDUCATION: Ballet staff kept on their toes By Della Bradshaw for The Financial Times

It is not often that classical ballet dancers find their way on to traditional management education programmes. But Bruce Samson, former principal at the UK's Royal Ballet Company and protégé of the legendary choreographer Sir Frederick Ashton, is perhaps no ordinary classical ballet dancer.

For Mr Samson is interested in the business side of dance as well as the creative. The course, he says, gave him the managerial experience he wanted to carry out his role as the new head of development at London's Rambert Dance Company.

"I want to understand both sides of the artistic environment," says Mr Samson. "I have seen people do it [dance management] without preparation. It's a personal risk and a risk to the organisation."

BRITAIN'S flagship modern dance ensemble Rambert Dance Company returns to The Lowry next week with a triple-bill that boasts the world première of Elsa Canasta, by the flamboyant Venezuelan choreographer Javier De Frutos.

The short season also includes 21 by Rambert's Associate Choreographer, Rafael Bonachela, which incorporates a short film featuring Kylie Minogue, as well as Visions Fugitives by Dutch choreographer Hans Van Manen.

Rambert Dance Company @ The Lowry By Robert Beale for Manchester online

KYLIE magic worked for Rambert Dance last night, as The Lowry was filled to the gunnels - by even more schoolgirls than usual, keen to see Kylie Minogue, even if it was only on a back-projected film in one item.

And they loved every minute, judging by the applause. And the company, now under Mark Baldwin's artistic direction, has clearly lost none of its versatility or technical virtuosity.

It's not often you see buttocks rhythmically groped to the strains of Cole Porter, but with Venezuelan choreographer Javier De Frutos, anything goes, especially below the belt. Inspired by an obsessive, repetitive section of Albee's Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? - where Honey paces the stairs nearing hysteria - his new piece Elsa Canasta has more sexual tweaking, crotch-grabbing and pelvic-thrusting than your average lap-dancing club

There are endless ways of going up and down a staircase as Javier De Frutos demonstrates in his second work for Ballet Rambert, Elsa Canasta. One of two new commissions central to the company's extensive autumn tour, it takes its inspiration from a production of Albee's Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? which left De Frutos with the indelible impression of Honey pacing obsessively up and down a set of stairs. This, and the words of his compatriot, the Venezuelan playwright Isaac Chocron, "Repetition is theatre's fuel", provided his stimulus.

Sex and celebrity preoccupy us all, and Rambert Dance Company, under its new artistic director Mark Baldwin, has come up with a remarkable triple bill as comprehensive as an entire conference of counsellors, and vastly more entertaining.

jennie123 posted 11 October 2003 05:12 PM -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- I've just been to see rambert at bristol and it was amazing. I had to study a dance company at college and i did rambert. it was amazing to finally get to see them live after two years of study. The show was fast and exciting. I really enjoyed the 2nd and 3rd sections the best. The 3rd section was funny and the dancing was amazing. Everybody looked as if they were enjoying themselves which is what dance is all about. it felt very 60's in the last section with the colours and dress and style. I would recommend anyone to go and see it. I will be going again next time they go to bristol.

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